Marathon Monday

I did it. I ran five miles yesterday.  It felt good. My heart rate was up and I was warm enough to unload two layers to my tank top.  That felt really good. Winter is behind us. Although, I won't mention that snow fell on Saturday.

This weekend I was supposed to run 13.2 miles in the Helderberg Half.
Today was the Boston Marathon.
Both canceled. But that doesn't mean running isn't canceled.
Beside the obvious of running 26.2 miles, what else can we we do to honor the Marathon's tradition since 1897?

Art

This may be a bit of a stretch but why not color in Rafael Lopez's muralist.  He looks like he could be running through the town while he paints.

Make sure to check out Rafael's Instagram (@rafael_161_ or his blog for daily art ideas).

STEAM

LINK to vault

Ok...So this could be even a bit more of a stretch but while I was looking for ways to tie the marathon into lesson plans, I came across this *amazing* resource from the annual Cambridge Science Festival. I mean, the marathon is in Boston and Cambridge is practially Boston, so not too much off the path.

How about you engage yourselves in a "marathon" of STEAM activities today or the whole week or 26.2 days?!  Check it out! Tons of book ideas, podcasts, shows, virtual trips and all for kids!  Maybe try 26 things? They call it a vault. Be careful when you enter because it is overflowing!

History

Why not do a little research on the Boston Marathon?  Here's a short story about it from NPR today.

Go to one of the databases and read up on marathons, Boston, the Olympics...


Now my friend, Tom Bober, will be proud of me on this one.  I just checked out the Library of Congress and found a photo from the 65th Boston Marathon in 1952.  Examine the photo.  What do you notice? 

Physical Activity

Of course, running today makes sense.  Pick a distance (26.2 yards?) and run. What's your time? Compete against yourself or family members.  What other physical activities can you do? Walk for 26.2 minutes?  What about jumping 26.2 inches? Or see how far you can jump and divide it by 26.2? Jump up and down or off a step 26 times.  Calculate how long that takes. Try and beat your time. Do 26 jumping jacks.   Be creative! See what you come up with! Make sure you are careful and take breaks if you need to.

Finally (and what really inspired this whole post)

Be sure and read Elisha Cooper's piece in today's New York Times. I realize the print version isn't as exciting and we all can't send our husbands out to try and find a copy for us, (although sadly mission was not accomplished YET), but the digital copy will work, too.  I just wanted to get one that I could hang up in my new "office." He's back out to keep looking. I am not too hopeful so please send if you have one and I'll run an extra 26.2 something in your honor. Thanks!

Now off to walk, not run, about 26.2 x 458 steps.
Be safe out there.

And I do research, too?

It's always hard to toot your own horn, but I can't help it for today was a pretty exciting day!  The extraordinary retired fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Harris, and I received an award from the New York State Archives.  Wild!  For three years Karen and I worked hard introducing kids to primary documents, our community, repositories and local historians in order to create a research project to submit to the NYS Student Research Award.  Kids researched what Castleton was like in its heydey!  They interviewed senior citizens, visited cemeteries and old movie theatres.  They admired wedding rings purchased from a jewelry store in our town and visited what was once an old jail.  Train wrecks, yearbooks, fire escapes, bakeries, newsrooms, wedding albums...And although the kids never won the top prize, in our minds they did. Yes, I cried when they didn't win, but I had to remind myself what hard work they put in and how much they learned about archives, historical records, primary documents and more.

Two years ago, we read the book Revolution by Deborah Wiles aloud with all of the fifth graders. Then we examined segregation and discrimination as the focus of our research projects. Some of the topics students examined were music, Title IX and literature. As a prerequisite to the research, Kathy Sheehan, the Rensselaer County historian took us on a field trip of Troy and we performed a reader's theatre.  Check this out:

Kathy Sheehan with our late superintendent, Bob Horan.
He met us in Troy that day.

Look at Bob participating in the Reader's Theatre!

Karen and I even took our show on the road!  We presented our program at four state conferences (one we even did twice because the workshop in our room was cancelled and people were anxious to learn something) and last year I wrote about it in my column for School Library Connection.

We couldn't have done it without the support of our administration and the perseverance of the village, town and county historians.  We were lucky enough to see the town and county historians today.  We reminisced about the time we had a 6:30 AM meeting with Kathy Sheehan to plan our project.  I did bring muffins to ease the pain of a sunrise meeting. But boy is that dedication or what?!

What an honor today was!  Thank you again NYS Archives for this award.  Thank you, Karen, for a seamless collaboration.  And of course, thank you to all of our students who worked so hard through and through even pulling their hair out to get the final submissions done as late as the 11th hour (literally!) on the very last day of school!

A Blast from Our Past

This documentary won an honorable mention in 2013.  It is from our very first year and is about a hotel that used to be right on Main Street in Castleton.  It's actually quite interesting.  They were lucky enough to get their hands on many primary documents and artifacts.  I was with the kids the day they were in the Village Hall and the ledger of the hotel was discovered in the back room. Needless to say, I was leaping!

American House VIDEO

Uncovering the Facts

Today, after a short review on how to take notes, we began digging into our country research. The excitement in the room just elevated! The third graders looked like college students. Books on their laps. Laptops in front of them. Headphones on so they could listen to the Belgium national anthem. Folders and books on the floor. Research is messy and we got messy today! 

Did you know that Benin has only 10 million people? "That's WAY smaller than the US!" exclaimed Ben! "China has 1 billion people!" shared Emma. 

We realized that it is hard to find out who the current leader is and may have to dig a bit deeper tomorrow to figure it out and learn more about the different governments. 

Excellent research third graders!  Can't wait to see what you dig up tomorrow!

Preparing for an International Gala

Yesterday was the first day of a month long project I am doing with Mrs. Yager's third grade class. I am so excited! I love third graders!

Each student is researching a different country and then they will dress up and be interviewed as a young person from that country at an evening International Gala for parents. We will eat food from all the world, too! It's going to be awesome. 

We kicked it all off yesterday by watching a great concert by Dave Ruch. If you get an opportunity to see this guy, you should! He was great with the kids! And even though it wasn't live, it sure felt like it was! Dave would ask the kids questions and they would raise their hands and he totally responded as if he was in the room.  It was almost weird that way.  Or they would be a little chatty after something and he would respond to that as well.  I highly recommend this concert.  We learned about different instruments in different countries and sang some fun songs together.  The 45 minutes whipped by!

Today we handed out research packets and I showed the students World Book, Britannica and Culturegrams online. I also took out books for each of them from the public library (many of my copies of any of the books are so old and some countries I didn't even have, such as Benin) and share those with the students, too. We are excited to dig into the research tomorrow!

Gluing the database passwords onto research folder.
In the background, someone has already begun sketching their flag.

Of course I'm excited about what fabulous food this young lady will bring to our Gala!